The Overnight

by Ramsey Campbell

  "How do you?" the second young woman is eager to discover, but is overruled. "We'll come to that," the organiser says. "We want to know what we're expected to get out of the very last paragraph."

  "What did you all think? Did you have different ideas?"

  "Let's hear yours first. Your boss said if anybody could make sense of it you could."

  Connie has stayed behind the counter so as not to embarrass him, but she needs to deal with the events leaflets. She's pacing sidelong when his eyes meet hers again. His tapped stare feels as if it's desperate to clutch at her. "I can't," he says and lurches to his feet like a puppet hoisted by its mottled head. He stumbles between the chairs and seems about to flee behind the scenes, then abruptly veers towards Connie. "Could someone else possibly do this?" he pleads.

  "What is it, Wilf?"

  "I'm …" He wags his fingers in front of his face and pinches the air as if he's trying to drag something out of his brain. "I've …"

  "It'll be a migraine, will it?" Agnes tells him.

  "I don't know, I've never had one," he says, then peers at her with something like gratitude. "Before," he adds.

  Connie wonders if Agnes means to adopt Lorraine's role of speaking up for her colleagues even if they haven't asked her to. "Are you really not going to be able to carry on, Wilf?"

  His eyes glisten like the shrouded tarmac outside. "I'm sorry. I'm letting everyone down."

  Presumably that's a yes. Connie would take charge of the reading group herself, but she has only leafed through the book. She lifts the nearest phone and sends her voice into the air in search of Jill. "Let your people know we're sending a substitute," she says to Wilf, "and then what will you do?"

  "There's nowhere you can lie down, is there?" Agnes says. "Try sitting with your eyes shut. You won't be able to drive home."

  "Can you leave your shelving for later, Jill," Connie doesn't ask. "Apparently Wilf has a migraine and we need someone to talk to his group about the Brodie Oates book."

  "I don't know if I liked it."

  "Then don't lie about it. Get them talking, that's your job. They're in Teenage. Come straight down," Connie says and cuts her off.

  Wilf has trudged to give the readers' group the news. The plaited woman throws up her hands and her gaze as he retreats to the armchair nearest to his section and sinks into it, closing his eyes. He opens them almost at once and stares at the books ahead of him before covering his eyes with a hand and sinking deeper into the chair. Connie is about to offer him some paracetamol when Jill appears with a glass of water and a brace of aspirin. Once she has ministered to him he hides his eyes again as she marches to the Teenage alcove without glancing at Connie. She perches on the edge of the empty chair and says "I'm Jill. Who liked the book?"

  Connie has to hold her mouth straight as Jill is met by silence. Eventually the young women admit they rather did. Connie would linger to hear how Jill deals with the plaited woman, but that won't repair the leaflets. She leaves the counter as Woody stalks into the shop. "Let me know if this guy returns anything else," he says, dropping the cassette on the Returns shelf. "It's been taped over."

  "What with?"

  "Some old historical movie. One of your battles, it looks like. It isn't even tuned in right. No wonder he didn't want to keep it." By now Woody's staring at Wilf and Jill. "What's been going on while I was out?"

  "Wilf's got a migraine," says Agnes. "Jill's read the book."

  "Tell him to sit upstairs till he recovers, for God's sake," Woody tells Connie.

  She's taking a resentful hot-faced step towards Wilf when Agnes says "Connie said I had to ask you about closing for the afternoon so we can all go to Lorraine's funeral."

  "Woody wants you to sit upstairs so the public doesn't see you." Having hurried to tell Wilf that, Connie strays back towards the counter to hear Woody say "Why all? Some of you didn't get on with her too well is how I remember it."

  "I'm certain her parents would like everyone to go."

  "They won't know how many staff there are, will they? It makes no sense to shut down for any length of time when we're already a person short. And I'm going to need anyone who wants to attend the funeral if it isn't their day off to commit themselves to working overnight next week. I hope everyone will anyway when they'll be helping to get her section the way she'd want it."

  As Agnes stares at Woody in disbelief, Wilf makes for the staffroom. Connie follows him in case he can't see to line up his badge with the plaque on the wall, but he unites them deftly enough. Halfway up the stairs he twists his head around to blink at her as if he feels hunted. "Sit at Ray's desk so people can take their breaks," she says. "It's his day off."

  Wilf grips the arms of Ray's chair and lowers himself in front of the blank computer screen. As Connie switches on her monitor he flattens a hand across his eyes. She deletes the unwelcome apostrophe and is rereading the document when she notices that he's spying through his fingers. "Anything else you can see I should do?" she asks.

  He shuts his fingers so fast and hard she's afraid he'll pinch his eyes between them. "No," he mutters.

  The image on the monitor shifts like fog. As she scowls at it to convince herself it hasn't played another trick, Angus hastens into the staffroom and fills his mug with coffee from the percolator. She knows he won't refuse anyone a favour. She's about to ask him to glance at the document until Agnes darts out of the stockroom. "Angus, are you working overnight next week?"

  "I was going to. I've put my name down."

  "I wasn't saying you shouldn't, only Woody says anyone that does is free to go to the funeral. I still think we all should be. I think we would be if we stood together."

  She has raised her eyes and her voice towards Connie, who tries to ignore her by studying the screen. The harder she concentrates, the less meaningful the words on it appear, even once Agnes returns to the stockroom. As Connie decides to print out a leaflet in case any errors will be more obvious on paper, Woody sprints upstairs, humming the tune the overhead speakers inflicted on everyone for weeks before the shop opened: "Goshwow, gee and whee, keen-o-peachy …" "Got to keep our spirits up," he remarks to Angus. "Here's the man we need."

  "Nearly finished my break," Angus assures him and gulps half a mugful.

  "Hey, no need to choke yourself. I'm going to ask you to help me out next week. You didn't hang out with Lorraine much, did you? You weren't one of her particular crowd if she had one."

  An angry clatter of books on a trolley in the stockroom is followed by a silence like a held breath. "I only knew her to work with," Angus admits.

  "So you won't mind giving her funeral a miss, will you? You'll be releasing somebody who cares."

  "Won't her parents wonder why I stayed away?"

  "You ever meet them?"

  "Not yet, but …"

  "Then I guess they don't know you exist. It'd only stir them up if anyone made an issue of it, and they don't need that right now, do they? That's settled then, yes? I can count on you."

  "I expect so," Angus says, and Connie senses he's hoping this will somehow placate Agnes. "I mean, you can," he has to add for Woody's benefit, provoking a furious onslaught on the trolley in the stockroom. He drains his mug and dumps it amid its predecessors in the stagnant sink before fleeing downstairs while Woody examines Connie's screen. "How's it looking now?" he enquires.

  "I can't see a problem, can you?"

  "I'm always seeing those," he says and glances towards the security monitor in his office. "I'm afraid the writers weren't too fond of your buddy Jill."

  "I wouldn't call her that exactly."

  "Is that so? Something between you I should know about?"

  "As far as I'm concerned there's nothing between us at all."

  Only some of his watchfulness drains into the stare he has turned on Connie. "She wasn't too successful at selling them on your book," he says. "Most of them went away wondering why we recommended it."

  "Why, have they gone already? How long h
ave we been up here, Wilf?"

  As Wilf shakes his head without letting go of his eyes with his hand, Woody says "Half an hour at least by my watch."

  Has she been at the screen all that time? Through the clinging mass of her confusion she hears Woody say "I'm afraid they weren't all that impressed with you either."

  She's starting to feel as she imagines Wilf does. "I can't remember ever speaking to them."

  "With your leaflet. I let them think it was some printer's fault, but I don't like having to hide things on behalf of the store. Will I have to again?"

  "Don't you know? You're looking at the same thing I am."

  "I'm looking at you, Connie," he says and lowers his gaze to the screen. "Print it as soon as you're happy with it, and then you can shelve a bunch of Lorraine's books so people have a chance to buy them."

  She has to assume he's seeing no more mistakes than she is—none at all—but as he veers into his office she wonders if he and her brain could be conspiring to play a trick. She glares at the screen until the words revert to marks utterly devoid of meaning. As she starts the printer on the basis of nothing except desperation, Wilf releases a low groan that she could take to be voicing her helplessness. For a moment she wants to confess it, and then she takes her mouth in a firm hand. She's just tense after what happened to Lorraine, she tells herself. They all must be, and it will ease eventually. She isn't about to talk herself out of a job.

  Angus

  As his mother steers the Vectra onto the Fenny Meadows slip road she says "You don't want to drive us the rest of the way, do you?"

  Is she telling him so or that she would prefer it if he did? "Do you want me to?" he counters as the roundabout dredges itself up from the fog at the foot of the ramp.

  "That has to be up to you, doesn't it, Angums?"

  He's so intent on concealing his wince at the nickname he keeps hoping she will let him leave behind that he hasn't replied by the time they arrive at the roundabout. The motorway rears over them, exposing its wet greyish pockmarked underside above concrete pillars snared by graffiti like vegetation too primitive to have defined its species. "It isn't far," he says, feeling trapped in a conversational game where the loser is whoever makes an unqualified statement, which is how he feels most of the time with his parents. "I mean, I could give it a try."

  "You'd like to be able to get yourself about, wouldn't you, though don't think for an instant your father and I mind bringing you and collecting you. You're on our route."

  "Maybe I shouldn't risk driving in this."

  "I'm sure that's sensible if you don't feel confident enough. I only thought you'll have to learn sooner or later to cope with conditions like these, and there shouldn't be much on the move in your car park."

  When he doesn't respond she drives under the motorway again. The fog lumbers after them through the gloomy dripping passage while it disentangles itself from the graffiti ahead, and then it seems to stagnate in the retail park, replacing the sky and denying the mid-morning sun and reducing the buildings to pallid blocks of mould. The Vectra crosses the car park, passing random strips of turf guarded by lank trees fattened by the fog. Tyre marks gape like glistening mouths on either side of the tree Mad's car felled; they're already overgrown with new grass. Beyond them Texts heaves up from the murk that clings to the display window and obscures patches of the Brodie Oates promotion. "Your father will pick you up tonight then, Angums," says his mother.

  "Thanks. I'll drive us to the motorway tomorrow if I can."

  She tilts her head an inch away from him, and her eyes farther. "Don't be so anxious to please everyone or you'll end up pleasing nobody, especially yourself."

  He feels as if he's being urged to turn on her—by a part of himself he would rather not acknowledge, not an audience that's skulking in the fog. He clenches his teeth to shut up his tongue while she pats his cheek, a gesture that suggests a yearning for all the kisses he couldn't avoid outside the school gates, and murmurs "Go on then, Angums, make us proud."

  He clutches his packed lunch and waves to her as the car bears away the L-plate like a badge of every time he has stalled the engine or accelerated instead of braking or skinned a tyre against the kerb. At least he's not that bad at work, he thinks as the fog swallows a last tinge of red. He hurries into Texts, and Woody's giant voice goes off like an alarm. "Keep smiling. Nobody likes a grouch."

  The comers of his mouth haul themselves to attention before he realises Woody is addressing Agnes. As she observes his reaction her blank expression twists into a scowl. "That's worse. We don't want to see that again," Woody's voice descends to say, and as she ducks behind the counter so fast she appears to have been seized by a cramp "Any time you'd like to join us, Angus, we can start."

  Angus is glad she's too busy hiding her grimace to watch him scurry to obey. The only customers are two studiedly bald men who seem to have marked out a pair of armchairs as their territory. Perhaps they intend to buy presents for children; each of them is leafing through a book with very few words to a page. Their dull eyes barely flicker as Angus hastens past with a rattle of containers in his lunch box.

  Everybody at the staffroom table does indeed appear to be waiting for him. Ross looks relieved he has appeared. Jill seems ready to defend herself, surely not against him. Gavin opens his mouth, but the nearest to a greeting he produces is a yawn he mostly swallows. Jake says "Here's the boy" more enthusiastically than Angus is certain he likes. He's saved from having to respond by Woody, who darts out of his office. "Okay, let's get you up to speed," he says not much more quietly than he sounded overhead. "I'll take this, Nigel. Maybe part of the problem is Brits managing Brits."

  Nigel shrugs and meets nobody's eyes as he tramps into the stockroom. He doesn't hesitate or glance back when Gavin says "That's a bit racist, isn't it?"

  "Hey, we don't need that word round here. We don't need anything that stirs up trouble. If we don't admit we're different we can't learn from whoever's got it more together, am I right? Take a seat whenever you're through there, Angus."

  Angus is trying to clock on but has the impression that the card isn't registering; it feels as if the slot is clogged with mud, though when he peers in, it looks clear. He swipes the card once more and drops it in the In rack and hurries to sit down, not soon enough to prevent Woody from saying "There's a small example of the stuff we need to get rid of."

  Angus feels Jill is transferring her defensiveness onto him by demanding "What is?"

  "Some of you don't seem to be used to our routines yet. The more things you can do without having to think about them the better."

  "I don't know if that's ever a good idea, doing things without thinking. I can't imagine telling my daughter to."

  "Round here it's essential. Let's keep discussion for another time, shall we? I need what I have to tell you to sink in."

  "God, that sounds masterful," says Jake.

  Angus wonders if he's deliberately exaggerating himself, and hopes Woody is. Jill lets out a giggle, most of it chopped off by shock, and Gavin emits a laugh that's even shorter and more mirthless. "Any more comments anyone needs to get out of the way?" Woody asks and stares at them.

  Angus can't help feeling forced to shake his head and offer what he hopes isn't too much of a smile or too little either, though everybody else keeps their response to themselves. "Okay, then," Woody says. "I wish I could take all of you to see how we do it back home."

  "How do you?"

  "Glad you asked, Angus. When you walk into a shop you want to feel the staff are eager to do everything they can for you, don't you? That's what I'm not always getting from some of you, and I don't only mean the ones around this table right now."

  "Some of us Brits, you mean," says Gavin.

  "That's exactly right. Maybe it's the British class thing, you feel serving is beneath you, but it isn't if you want to work for Texts. I'm starting to think it's one reason we aren't seeing enough customers. We need to make them feel this is the best b
ookstore they were ever in, which by God it is from what I've seen of the competition. We have to make sure they keep coming back and tell all their friends."

  Angus doesn't want to feel delegated to ask, but the silence tugs his mouth open. "How do we?"

  "I know why you guys are feeling blue, but we don't want the customers to be. For a start you smile whenever you see a customer. Remind yourself they're the people that are keeping you employed and maybe that'll help. Go ahead. Like this."

  He jerks his fingers up on either side of his face as if to urge the corners of his mouth higher. His eyes are wide and ready to answer any question, his lips are parted to expose his gleaming teeth. All this might look more welcoming if his eyes weren't so red. His face puts Angus in mind of a clown's helpless mask, especially when it doesn't relent until everyone has attempted to match it. "You all need to work on that," Woody says as the expression sinks into his face. "Okay, let's try what goes with it. From now on we greet every customer. Will anyone be uncomfortable saying welcome to Texts?"

  It's him Angus can't say he's comfortable with, and so he says nothing. Woody's either happy or determined to take the silence for general agreement; certainly his smile is close to surfacing again. "So I'm a customer," he declares. "Who's going to welcome me?"

  He isn't gazing only at Angus, but Angus is unable to ignore the urgency that seems to be turning Woody's eyes even redder. He clears his throat, and the end of the noise catches on his first word. "Welcome to Texts."

  "Couldn't hear you."

  "Welcome to Texts," Angus nearly shouts as his hot face swells around his mouth.

  "Hey, I'm in the store, not out there in the fog. That's more enthusiastic, anyway, but what am I not seeing?"

  Failing to grasp what he means gives Angus the impression that his brain is steeped in fog. Woody's eyes widen like wounds, and he jabs a chewed thumbnail at his face. Instantly the smile is back and toothier than ever. "It's nothing without this," it hardly wavers while he tells Angus.